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Ramiz Abutalybov, Soviet and Azerbaijani diplomat, social activist
Today we have gathered to present a book
entitled "A.M. Topchibashi: Documents From Personal Archives 1903-1934."
In a couple of words I would like to speak about what I have brought.
One part was given to me by his son Dzhekhun bek and brother Uzui bek.
The other part was given to me by Ali's granddaughter Mardan bek Topchibashi,
the chairman of the Azerbaijani delegation at the Versailles peacemaking negotiations,
I brought them from Istanbul.
For 22 years these documents were kept in the state archive.
I didn't know what materials where in these documents.
I brought 200 kg home and gave it to the archive,
as the documents are old and it wouldn't be comfortable to store them at home.
Azerbaijanis have a proverb - only a jeweller can appreciate a gem.
Our dear Salavat Iskhakov turned out to be such a jeweller.
He is PhD (History), the senior scientist of the Russian History Institute of the RAS.
He made his first compliment: "Ramiz, you're sitting on treasure."
I didn't know that it was a treasure. Thanks to Salavat I realized that this is a treasure.
Thank you! He carried out great work.
Salavat knows Russian history perfectly, especially its period connected with Muslims
in the early 20th century.
He has three big works. One is headlined "Russian Muslims and the Revolution of 1905";
the other is "Russian Muslims and the Revolution of 1917";
and the third is "The Civil War and Russian Muslims." I think he is the best expert.
Salavat Iskhakov, author of the book, leading researcher at the Institute of Russian History of the RAS
I am very grateful that we met a few years ago. Ramiz Abutalibov is a wonderful person,
very unusual for our time.
So I was so enthusiastic to agree to help him in working with these books.
We have a creative union, and with each book we tried to do our job as best as we could.
The problem was that these documents are very difficult to work with.
The materials were not written for publication; there are letters. notes, sketches,
projects, drafts and so on, that is, materials that we call personal documents.
And they are of great value.
In these documents we can find amazing things about the historical reality,
presenting it quite differently, not like in the books and articles that later historians write.
Here we see the story through the eyes of these people.
This is a great merit of Ramiz muallim, that helps restore these documents.
And we with our modest possibilities will do it from a scientific point of view.
Of course, it is quite difficult to restore the text and to understand the handwriting,
because they wrote in a very peculiar way.
Many times our colleagues helped us,
because it was so hard to understand sometimes one word,
I'll give you an example:
I examined one page of a letter by Topchibashi for about a month,
because it was a photocopy of the letter, which was kept in Paris.
There are sticks, because his hand hurt, and he wrote with sticks.
And the whole letter is written by means of these sticks.
It turned out amazing, like some ancient manuscript.
When we look at the text and do not understand it, we look at it again in a week,
and some letter appears, the word becomes clearer and clearer.
The document is several times over a period of time viewed by a specialist,
and he gradually gets to know the information in the document just at the level of intuition.
This word appears as an image. Many people have tried to make it out.
Ramiz muallim knows that we restore the letters literally.
Of course, this work is fascinating, the real work of an historian.
Of course, I understand that at the same time we could be wrong somewhere,
sometimes we do not understand something, but it is a science.
Our problem was not to replace the Azerbaijani historians
who are very well aware of all these things;
we just wanted to help develop the database, the sources,
so that the historians of Azerbaijan can enjoy our modest contributions,
and to advance historical science.
Olga Rostova
Ramiz Abutalibov did not come in order to talk about himself.
I found out about him a little later.
He came to say thanks for the fact that in our vocabulary we mentioned so many people
about the life of whom he knew many of things or whom he knew personally.
He came, first, just to say thank you for the fact that his people in this dictionary,
like many other peoples who were forced to emigrate after the events of 1917,
and someone even before,
was mentioned there;
second, he just came to correct something and to recall the people we did not know.
And we were grateful to him, and all this information was immediately posted on the site
where our dictionary had already been uploaded,
the site of the Tsvetaeva Museum, if you get a chance, try to see it.
And he brought us a lot of new names.
But I can honestly tell you, together with my colleague,
the head of our work, Lev Abramovich Mnukhin,
I was charmed not only so much by the attention to the work of my colleagues,
because we are truly colleagues,
but also by the desire to help and to continue further cooperation.
And when Ramiz Abutalibov just sent me nine hand-written pages of comments,
corrections, clarifications, additions,
I was simply shocked, because we could not find these things without a specialist,
an expert, someone who knows about what happened in the Azerbaijani diaspora.
Moreover, a few years before that, as our director said,
they were given a lot of things for our museum, precious things, of course.
I just wanted to say that, without going into the content now and in the features of this edition,
I have worked with it, and there are certain things that have already been corrected
in the online dictionary,
and if we have a revised edition, all the comments have to be printed on paper.
I would like to say that this person is working not only for himself,
as many scientists, journalists and ordinary people do,
and he tries to impart knowledge accumulated over many, many years,
to people and to work with us to fill the gaps in our shared history that are too many.
I think that over time, over the years, such gaps will become fewer and fewer,
because we know that many scientists are involved in studying the former Soviet republics
and the Caucasus nations and peoples of the Volga region,
and many, many other communities, including the Cossacks and the very small peoples.
I think a lot of names will again be known thanks to people like Ramiz Abutalibov.
Ismail Agakishiyev, head of the Center for Caucasian Studies of the Russian State Humanitarian University, Associate Professor of the History Department of Moscow State University
By and large, history begins with the sources.
As life begins with the mother, history begins with the sources.
Naturally, I say thank you to Ramiz for the book that was written.
I believe, both Azerbaijani and Russian people are very lucky to have such a person,
Soviet society fought against him for all his life,
but he has created a product that he has brought us today, and it became our heritage.
Thank you very much, Salavat Beck, thank you so much,
because only a person who loves his job can sit down and do what he does.
This is not a round table about something and not another conference about something,
which will be forgotten today, tomorrow or next week.
It is created; I have taken this book today, of course I will read it,
I confidently tell you, because since 1983 I have been at Moscow University,
and since I was 6 years old I have been reading books on history.
This book will be required reading for many people.
Salavat Iskhakov, author of the book, a leading researcher at the Institute of Russian History
Our creative collaboration has led to the fact that several books have appeared.
This book is a collection of documents that are in various archives, both in Moscow and in Baku,
and in other places.
This is the last book of the series.
This is related to the fact that historians should look for new documents,
and it is our duty to recreate the historical truth.
In this sense, collections of documents are much more valuable than the studies,
with all due respect to my colleagues and to the very work of the historian, I am a historian,
but documents are a priceless thing, which will be recognized by our descendants,
it is history that is passed down from generation to generation.
Ramiz Abutalibov, Soviet and Azerbaijani diplomat, social activist
The first part is about the years 1903-1917,
years of Muslim participation in the work of the State Duma of the Russian Empire,
the first, second, third and fourth Dumas.
The documents are mainly dedicated to journeys, meetings of Ali Mardan Bey Topchibashi,
who at the time was one of the leading lawyers in Russia,
a graduate of St. Petersburg University.
They, along with the Tartar and Central Asian Muslims,
created a Muslim party "Union of Muslims of Russia."
The first part is devoted to this and to the work of the Muslim faction
in the State Duma of Russia.
The second part is about the emigration.
After 1920, Azerbaijani diplomats did not return home and remained in France.
All the correspondence concerns the activities that they have carried out there,
taking part in various international events to raise the awareness of the world community
about the aggression on the part of Soviet Russia and the loss of independence.